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I think one of my biggest issues with Denver in my recent visit was how flat as a pancake it is. I can deal with the lack of trees, arid-ness, not being as close to the mountains as I would like, not having as handsome a housing stock as I would like, summer heat...but the flatness is harder. The cities I have lived in San Diego, Boston, Seattle, SF are all hilly. So you can choose a neighborhood on a hill and have more of a "sense" of where you are and have city and mountain views. And when you drive around these cities you go up and down hills giving you views as you live your daily life. But in my driving around Denver the overall flatness created very few views as I drove around. When I drove the suburban neighborhoods (Wheat Ridge, Arvada, Englewood, Littleton, etc...), most houses just have views of the house next door. And when you drive to work or the grocery store, most likely you get no views. The flatness I think was my biggest issue. When I came from the airport over though Aurora that seemed to have some Rockies views, but that does not seem to be a desirable area and it's further from the mountains.
When I drove the suburban neighborhoods (Wheat Ridge, Arvada, Englewood, Littleton, etc...), most houses just have views of the house next door.
LOL. I live in Arvada, and I have what I think is an awesome view of the mountains, and the surrounding city area off to the southwest. I have found that the view is 5X better during winter however, mostly because of the bare trees and the snow capped mountains.
The funny thing about it, is that since my house is on an incline, only my house and my neighbors on the same side of the street have the view too. My across the street neighbors don't have views of anything.
I think it is fairly hard to get mountain views around here, just because of the way much of the city and suburbs were designed. Especially in the older parts of town (50+ years old), as most of the development was gridded into the NWES orientation, and for whatever reason didn't take any sort of views into account.
Wrapping up my week of research into Denver and Colorado, some final thoughts & random insights:
-There are some really, really cool neighborhoods within the City of Denver, I was very surprised at this. It felt very East Coast, leafy neighborhoods and homes with tons of character. Didn't expect this with a city this far west. Living in Denver in a older neighborhood would be my first choice of a place to live if I moved here, but I was kind of looking for something closer to hiking, mountains. I've lived in hip urban neighborhoods the last 25 years (SF, Seattle) and was looking for something more on outskirts with elbow room, closer to outdoors stuff for this stage of my life....but also with fairly easy access to Denver for sporting events and social/business stuff.
-Drove the suburbs pretty extensively and could not find an area with any charm I really liked. Closest I found was maybe around Old Town Arvada. As much as I was impressed with the old neighborhoods in Denver proper, I was not impressed with the burbs at all. Very generic, uninspiring housing stock. So many of those boxy looking brick ranch houses from the 1950's that all look alike. I really wanted to find a neighborhood on the outskirts close to hiking with semi rural charm but just couldn't find much that inspired me. West Arvada there was some "ranch" "horsey" stuff that looked it might have possibilities. Wasn't really feeling Golden, it's kind of in a bowl and the Coors plant gives it an industrial feel, and it seems always very brown there. I really thought Denver's suburban housing stock had very little architectural beauty or ambiance at all. It might just be too soul killing to live in one of those suburban brick ranchers clones and drive to the local strip center for my morning coffee every day. But it might be a worthwhile trade-off to be 1 hour from the high Rockies. That would be 90% of my reason for moving to Denver, access to the high Rockies to play. And the sunny weather too.
-I would choose Denver over Ft. Collins, Boulder or CO. Springs. I would rank the CO Metro areas: 1. Denver, 2. Ft. Collins, 3. Boulder, 4. Co Springs (distant 4th). I'm sure Boulder was a cool funky mountain college town 40 years ago, but now it's a congested mess and very contrived IMO full of fake hipsters. Boulder to me is one of the most overrated, over-priced places in the U.S. This is coming from a guy who has lived in a lot of hip funky neighborhoods (all over SF like Mission Dist., Berkeley/Oakland, Ballard area Seattle, etc...). Couldn't pay me to live in Boulder. Ft. Collins is pretty cool, but it's too far to the good stuff in the high Rockies, and the outdoor stuff within 10-20 min of the town didn't inspire me much. Too student dominated as well downtown. Some of the more rural ranch property just West of Longmont was kind of cool. Great views of Rockies.
-driving though the Rockies knocked my socks off once again (but I knew that already!). What cool towns Salida and Buena Vista are, had never been there before.
-Not sure yet if I would move here. I may come back some other time of the year and get a extended stay hotel and just hang in Denver for a month (and not drive around the state like I did this time) to get a feel if it would work for me. The front range towns (including Denver) didn't really knock my socks off, but being so close to the high Rockies + all the sunshine is enticing.
I think our city is great and our suburbs are mostly awful.
I do not dislike Boulder as much as you do and I think you missed a lot of the outdoor opportunities near Ft. Collins. The Poudre canyon and wilderness around it is amazing.
Dear, OP hopefully this will help a little bit with the "flatness" dilemma.
IMO I think you should stay in Seattle, but here's a few things on Denver to maybe help brighten your outlook of the city.
Denver metro is not hilly compared to Seattle of course, but it's not all flat everywhere like you seem to think.
In comparison to the places you've lived here's a way to look at it to maybe help your opinion of Denver.
Sand Diego is somewhat hilly, not that hilly in my opinion except right by the ocean but a little hillier than Denver. However there are no big mountain views in San Diego and Denver does have this attribute. The highest mountain visible from San Diego is only 6000 feet above the city and it's isolated and 48 miles away. In Denver there are peaks 8,000 to 9,000 feet above the city stretching for 100 miles only 30 to 40 miles from downtown!
San Fran is very hilly, but no big mountains anywhere to speak of!
Seattle has both hills and mountain views, but hills will block your mountain view in many places, also you do realize that the highest peaks of the Cascades and Olympic mountains are further from Seattle than the Front Range high peaks are from Denver right? Plus the Olympics are all shorter that the Front Range peaks in terms of vertical rise. The hills and greenery in Seattle just make the city more interesting for many, but it has nothing to do with the distance from the mountains or mountain views.
Denver has no water view, but it has scattered hilly areas and one of the best panoramic high mountain views anywhere! Also there are still many lakes around Denver, nothing big but lakes nonetheless.
I personally prefer the aridness of Denver and many people grow to like it, I hate the tree saturation of the coastal areas and if I want to see a forest I just drive 20 minutes west or south from Denver.
I think people really misjudge how hilly certain areas of Denver are because they look eastward or from a distance and just assume that there can be no hills, but this is an absurd outlook because there are plenty of scattered hilly areas, it's just not uniformly hilly like Seattle.
So my point is if you want hills, Denver metro has them in many areas, however if you want uniformly hilly across the whole metro then Denver is not for you.
Denver proper has no hilly areas other than sloping areas to the west, but actually the highlands neighborhood off speer blvd just to the northwest of Downtown rises 300 feet above downtown only 1.5 miles away. It's not a steep rise but it's a close area to downtown and 300 feet higher nonetheless with cool views. The mountain view isn't great because of buildings, but there are many areas that you can see the mountains and downtown if you know where to go. Driving through this area gives you a small taste of what you like about Seattle, SF, and SD. West Denver and just west of the city proper near Sheridan and Wadsworth Blvd has many hilly driving spots and areas with mountain and city views, if you missed them make sure to go back and look again! The area of Kipling near I-70 and not far from west Denver has a few 200 to 300 foot hills and views of the mountains along the drive.
There are hilly areas in the suburbs of Lakewood, Golden, Littleton, Westminster, Arvada, Parker, Westminster, Broomfield and others. Westminster has many rolling hills, and Arvada for example just off I-70 has a large 300 foot hill to the north. Lakewood has many 200 foot hilly areas but they are spread apart. Green mountain area is a huge 1000 foot hill in Lakewood with great views of the city and mountains. Golden of course is right at the base of the foothills, and Parker although far from the mountains is in a very hilly setting near the Palmer Divide. Wheat ridge too near Kipling and I-70 as I mentioned has a nice 250 foot ridge on the south side and a view of the mountains to the west. Broomfield has huge hills on the west side of the city before you hit the foothills, and rolling hills to the south and east that are up to 300 feet in elevation difference but gentle sloping. People seem to always miss the hilly areas of the Denver suburbs and claim there are none, and I can never understand why.
Denver is not hilly in the same sense as Seattle, but it's not all flat and the same elevation throughout the entire area. For example I live just 10 miles from Downtown Denver in Lakewood and I'm 550 feet above downtown and only 2 miles from the foothills. There are scattered 200 foot hilly areas to the north and south of me and green mountain is 800 feet above me just west of my place. The rise from Downtown to where I live is just a gentle upslope but I still have a view 550 feet above the city to the east and the mountains to the west. Castle Rock although kinda far from Denver is in a very hilly area south of Denver on the Palmer Divide and has great views of the Front Range and scattered pine forests too, so maybe consider it as well.
I disagree that mountains are always visible in Seattle, I've found in many areas a 200 foot hill blocks your mountain view. Sure you can see a hill, but no mountains. Also the cloudy weather blocks your mountain view all the time in Seattle. Just My opinion though.
Also I disagree that you can't see mountains from certain suburbs in Denver, The front Range is visible from all suburbs and for 100 miles eastward. I mean the flatness overall keeps the mountains in view! I assume you meant that in a neighborhood the homes block your view, and I agree but if you have that specific of requirements and have to always see a mountain from every window or area of a neighborhood then you won't be happy anywhere except where you came from and perceive as ideal and meeting your needs. If walking 500 feet to catch a glimpse of the mountains is too much then you'd probably hate Denver. Again if I were you I'd just deal with the weather in Seattle and stay there. SLC, UT is also pretty flat, but the fact that the mountains are fault block ones and rise straight up from the city is the only reason they are always visible, it has nothing to do with flatness or hills in Salt Lake City. If the front range west of Denver was also a fault block range and had no foothills then it would look similar to Salt Lake City because Denver could be built right next to the high peaks, but this wouldn't change how flat Denver is.
Also in response to your comment about the mountain views in Aurora and DIA, You must realize it's been unusually very cloudy the last few weeks and this has blocked the mountain views quite a bit lately. Aurora and the Airport have some of the best panoramic mountain views in the metro area, and if you missed them it's just because of the weather not geography. Sure Aurora is not that desirable, and is a few miles further from the mountains than Denver, but it still has a great mountain view when the weather is clear which it usually is.
You see each city has it's charms that you can't find in the others. It's not like SD, SF, and Seattle have everything Denver has but more, it's just how you perceive the differences of each city that makes one more likable than the other rather than assuming one has all the attributes of the others but with more just because you like those specific attributes.
I'm just trying to help with your decision and hopefully brighten your outlook on Denver, please don't take it any other way. Best of luck to you!
Dear, OP hopefully this will help a little bit with the "flatness" dilemma.
IMO I think you should stay in Seattle, but here's a few things on Denver to maybe help brighten your outlook of the city.
Denver metro is not hilly compared to Seattle of course, but it's not all flat everywhere like you seem to think.
In comparison to the places you've lived here's a way to look at it to maybe help your opinion of Denver.
Sand Diego is somewhat hilly, not that hilly in my opinion except right by the ocean but a little hillier than Denver. However there are no big mountain views in San Diego and Denver does have this attribute. The highest mountain visible from San Diego is only 6000 feet above the city and it's isolated and 48 miles away. In Denver there are peaks 8,000 to 9,000 feet above the city stretching for 100 miles only 30 to 40 miles from downtown!
San Fran is very hilly, but no big mountains anywhere to speak of!
Seattle has both hills and mountain views, but hills will block your mountain view in many places, also you do realize that the highest peaks of the Cascades and Olympic mountains are further from Seattle than the Front Range high peaks are from Denver right? Plus the Olympics are all shorter that the Front Range peaks in terms of vertical rise. The hills and greenery in Seattle just make the city more interesting for many, but it has nothing to do with the distance from the mountains or mountain views.
Denver has no water view, but it has scattered hilly areas and one of the best panoramic high mountain views anywhere! Also there are still many lakes around Denver, nothing big but lakes nonetheless.
I personally prefer the aridness of Denver and many people grow to like it, I hate the tree saturation of the coastal areas and if I want to see a forest I just drive 20 minutes west or south from Denver.
I think people really misjudge how hilly certain areas of Denver are because they look eastward or from a distance and just assume that there can be no hills, but this is an absurd outlook because there are plenty of scattered hilly areas, it's just not uniformly hilly like Seattle.
So my point is if you want hills, Denver metro has them in many areas, however if you want uniformly hilly across the whole metro then Denver is not for you.
Denver proper has no hilly areas other than sloping areas to the west, but actually the highlands neighborhood off speer blvd just to the northwest of Downtown rises 300 feet above downtown only 1.5 miles away. It's not a steep rise but it's a close area to downtown and 300 feet higher nonetheless with cool views. The mountain view isn't great because of buildings, but there are many areas that you can see the mountains and downtown if you know where to go. Driving through this area gives you a small taste of what you like about Seattle, SF, and SD. West Denver and just west of the city proper near Sheridan and Wadsworth Blvd has many hilly driving spots and areas with mountain and city views, if you missed them make sure to go back and look again! The area of Kipling near I-70 and not far from west Denver has a few 200 to 300 foot hills and views of the mountains along the drive.
There are hilly areas in the suburbs of Lakewood, Golden, Littleton, Westminster, Arvada, Parker, Westminster, Broomfield and others. Westminster has many rolling hills, and Arvada for example just off I-70 has a large 300 foot hill to the north. Lakewood has many 200 foot hilly areas but they are spread apart. Green mountain area is a huge 1000 foot hill in Lakewood with great views of the city and mountains. Golden of course is right at the base of the foothills, and Parker although far from the mountains is in a very hilly setting near the Palmer Divide. Wheat ridge too near Kipling and I-70 as I mentioned has a nice 250 foot ridge on the south side and a view of the mountains to the west. Broomfield has huge hills on the west side of the city before you hit the foothills, and rolling hills to the south and east that are up to 300 feet in elevation difference but gentle sloping. People seem to always miss the hilly areas of the Denver suburbs and claim there are none, and I can never understand why.
Denver is not hilly in the same sense as Seattle, but it's not all flat and the same elevation throughout the entire area. For example I live just 10 miles from Downtown Denver in Lakewood and I'm 550 feet above downtown and only 2 miles from the foothills. There are scattered 200 foot hilly areas to the north and south of me and green mountain is 800 feet above me just west of my place. The rise from Downtown to where I live is just a gentle upslope but I still have a view 550 feet above the city to the east and the mountains to the west. Castle Rock although kinda far from Denver is in a very hilly area south of Denver on the Palmer Divide and has great views of the Front Range and scattered pine forests too, so maybe consider it as well.
I disagree that mountains are always visible in Seattle, I've found in many areas a 200 foot hill blocks your mountain view. Sure you can see a hill, but no mountains. Also the cloudy weather blocks your mountain view all the time in Seattle. Just My opinion though.
Also I disagree that you can't see mountains from certain suburbs in Denver, The front Range is visible from all suburbs and for 100 miles eastward. I mean the flatness overall keeps the mountains in view! I assume you meant that in a neighborhood the homes block your view, and I agree but if you have that specific of requirements and have to always see a mountain from every window or area of a neighborhood then you won't be happy anywhere except where you came from and perceive as ideal and meeting your needs. If walking 500 feet to catch a glimpse of the mountains is too much then you'd probably hate Denver. Again if I were you I'd just deal with the weather in Seattle and stay there. SLC, UT is also pretty flat, but the fact that the mountains are fault block ones and rise straight up from the city is the only reason they are always visible, it has nothing to do with flatness or hills in Salt Lake City. If the front range west of Denver was also a fault block range and had no foothills then it would look similar to Salt Lake City because Denver could be built right next to the high peaks, but this wouldn't change how flat Denver is.
Also in response to your comment about the mountain views in Aurora and DIA, You must realize it's been unusually very cloudy the last few weeks and this has blocked the mountain views quite a bit lately. Aurora and the Airport have some of the best panoramic mountain views in the metro area, and if you missed them it's just because of the weather not geography. Sure Aurora is not that desirable, and is a few miles further from the mountains than Denver, but it still has a great mountain view when the weather is clear which it usually is.
You see each city has it's charms that you can't find in the others. It's not like SD, SF, and Seattle have everything Denver has but more, it's just how you perceive the differences of each city that makes one more likable than the other rather than assuming one has all the attributes of the others but with more just because you like those specific attributes.
I'm just trying to help with your decision and hopefully brighten your outlook on Denver, please don't take it any other way. Best of luck to you!
You are right about the hills, in my second run though Denver today I did notice hills especially towards the West part of the suburbs and there were some really nice city views looking back from the far end of Lakewood. And yes I did notice the southwest part of the suburbs do have some decent hills.
What I meant by not a lot of mountain views, was you can't see the mountains from most suburban neighborhood houses. Where in SLC and ABQ for example, you can see mountains from the great majority of houses right from your front yard or back porch. This didn't seem the case in driving many of the western suburban neighborhoods, it didn't seem like you could stand in the front yard of the average house and see the Rockies. But yes you can see the Rockies from many major roads and highways and they are beautiful.
Denver proper city limits (not the western suburbs) is pretty flat compared to the cities mentioned. I disagree that San Diego is not hilly, it is VERY hilly. Ever climbed the hill from downtown/Little Italy to Balboa Park? Or say Old Town to Mission Hills? Those are huge San Francisco style hills right in the city limits. San Diego's landcape is all made up large canyons so it is extremely hilly throughout the county. Also San Diego has tremendous mountain views (and ocean views) from many areas. You go from sea level to 6,500 feet in about 30 miles. Denver goes from over 5,000 feet to 12k-14k feet, so there isn't that as big a difference in elevation rise as one would think.
Denver is a great place for sure, mostly IMO because it's so close to the Rockies, which is awesome. I think it is a solid metro area and solid place to live overall. I'm just the type who tells it as I see it, that means the negative with the positive.
I think our city is great and our suburbs are mostly awful.
I do not dislike Boulder as much as you do and I think you missed a lot of the outdoor opportunities near Ft. Collins. The Poudre canyon and wilderness around it is amazing.
I did drive up hwy 14 to the Poudre Canyon (and all the way to Steamboat Springs via hwy 14) and Red Feather Lakes and it is pretty nice. But I was talking what is like 20 min outside of the city like Horsetooth Canyon which I thought was nice, but not super nice. When you start getting an hour or so out on hwy 14 it does start getting pretty amazing. But I was thinking right there locally for everyday hiking, and the mountain views from Ft. Collins were only so so. Ft. Collins also had pretty solid traffic congestion for a town that size too. I think Ft. Collins is a terrific area overall, didn't want to come off negative about it. I just wouldn't personally choose to live there. Boulder I stand by my comments, just not a big fan when you think of what you get for the money (housing) and the traffic congestion.
I actually really, really liked some of the downtown neighborhoods of Denver. This was a big surprise how nice and full of character they are. If I moved I would change my plan and live in Denver and just have a little further drive to the foothills and mountains for outdoors stuff. Although I'm guessing those houses in nicer areas of Denver proper are very expensive to buy, and I would imagine maintenance and upkeep high as they are all very old.
There are some really, really cool neighborhoods within the City of Denver, I was very surprised at this. It felt very East Coast, leafy neighborhoods and homes with tons of character. Didn't expect this with a city this far west. Living in Denver in a older neighborhood would be my first choice of a place to live if I moved here, but I was kind of looking for something closer to hiking, mountains. I've lived in hip urban neighborhoods the last 25 years (SF, Seattle) and was looking for something more on outskirts with elbow room, closer to outdoors stuff for this stage of my life....but also with fairly easy access to Denver for sporting events and social/business stuff.
All the interior western cities (north of the southwest) try to emulate the East. There's nothing special about that. You'll find those same leafy old neighborhoods in Salt Lake City, Boise, Billings, Cheyenne, Reno, etc. I talked to a landscape designer once who had moved from the Midwest and was dismayed that he didn't have to learn a different plant pallet when he arrived in Fort Collins. He said that most of the nurseries here sold a subset of the same plants that their Midwestern counterparts sold.
But brown (OTOH) is the natural color around here. You can mask it in your own localized micro-habitat (at least during the growing season), but it's waiting outside the city limits (and outside the months of April through October). Best to embrace it if you live here.
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